


the spaceman says everybody look down [it’s all in your mind]

by peytra



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Abduction, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Gen, Mild Language, References to racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12294534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peytra/pseuds/peytra
Summary: The desert is hot and nearly endless. Anything could be hiding out there, in the dunes. But nothing is, because aliens aren’t real, Shepard knows, whatever Joker might say. And if her dreams are sometimes invaded by a bright white light, nobody needs to know.On Semi-Permanent Hiatus





	the spaceman says everybody look down [it’s all in your mind]

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at mass-defect

Tinny music plays from the radio of her old truck as Shepard speeds down the long road towards town. Her windows are rolled up, the clunky AC running, but only just. She’s going well over the speed limit, but she knows that cops don’t come out on this road; it’s too far from town, and doesn’t have nearly enough traffic to be worth it. When they do get out this far, they take one look at her prosthetic arm and let her go with a warning. Even the ones that know her do it, though, to be fair, everybody in Lys Canyon knows everybody else. There’s only ten thousand or so people, and they aren’t close enough to Vegas to get gamblers.  
So she goes faster than she probably should, and tries not to be annoyed that she has to go into town and socialize on her first day back. She just has to reassure the gossips that she’s still alive, and they’ll do the rest of the work for her. Simple enough. The song ends, and the host of the show comes on the air.  
“It’s gonna be another hot one,” he declares, as if there ever isn’t a hot one. He starts advertising for a local pizzeria, so Shepard turns to another station. She flips between them until she finds something that isn’t playing country music and settles back down.

* * *

 

The center of town is the same as always. Truthfully, she doesn’t really know why she expected it to change; if it hadn’t changed in the five years she’d been living there, it wasn’t about to in a few months of absence. She rolls up to the grocery store to get everything she’ll need for at least a month. She prefers not to drive in if she doesn’t have to. She puts the bags in the trunk, ignores the offers of help, and continues to the diner.  
The diner hasn’t changed either, that much she can tell from the outside. It looks like something straight from the fifties mixed with the wear and tear of anything that lives in the desert. The neon sign, outshined by the light of day, declares it as Nora’s Diner, even though Nora’s been dead for years. She checks herself in the little window of the car, making sure she doesn’t look too harried; if people think she’s upset, they might come barging into her house, and she doesn’t want that. She redoes her ponytail, some of her curly black hair having come out on the drive, and shrugs on her shawl; the seam between flesh and metal can bother people, and if they’re going to look at something, she’d prefer they look at the arm itself. She steps out of the truck and walks into the diner. The inside, unlike the outside, looks sleek and modern. White walls, bright lights, uncomfortable chairs, asymmetrical tables. There are posters on every wall with UFOs, or images of little green men, declaring things like ‘I want to believe’. Nora’s really likes to milk the ‘alien hotbed’ thing. Most of the regulars are there: Jack Nought, Kasumi Goto, and Jacob Taylor. She slides into one of the tables, away from the others. She doesn’t need to go to them; they’ll come to her. Edith walks over to her, notepad in hand, a professional smile on her face.  
“What can I get for you?”  
“Just the usual, thanks.”  
“Sure I can’t tempt you with a little desert, or something? You’re looking a bit thin.”  
“You always think people look thin, Ed.”  
“That’s because they do. All these diet fads and crazy new exercises; nobody’s eating good food anymore.”  
Shepard just shakes her head. Edith’s nice enough, for all that her name is unfortunate. She seems to understand that Shepard just doesn’t care for conversation, and if Shepard had to call anybody in Lys Canyon her friend, she’d go with Edith. Edith walks off to the kitchen, and Shepard hunkers down. Kasumi turns towards her, about to say something, when the door chimes, and in walks Joker. He sees Shepard and immediately sits at her table, and she holds in a groan.  
“You’ve been gone a while,” he says, eyes narrowed.  
“Joker, you know where I was.”  
“I know where you said you were, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true. I mean, ‘off to see a dying family member’, come on. You and I both know you don’t have any family.”  
“Christ, Joker, can’t you lay off her?” Jacob says. “She’s only just gotten back.”  
Joker points at Jacob. “Ah, but gotten back from where? France, where this mysterious family member was, or maybe, just maybe-”  
“Joker, I swear to God, if you accuse me of being an alien again, I will punch you.”  
Kasumi pipes up from her table. “Y’know, I wonder, is it racist that you only really accuse Shepard of being ET? I mean, is this because she’s black, or what?”  
“It’s not being racist if it’s genuinely suspicious!” Joker says, putting his hands up defensively.  
“Oh, so now black people are suspicious?” Jacob adds, “Why don’t you tell us what you really think, white boy.”  
“I was just gonna say, maybe Shepard over here has been abducted.” He turns back to her. “You came back last night, yeah?”  
She nods slowly.  
“The lights over at the ridge disappeared last night. They were there, every day, for months, and now they’re gone, the same day you come back. Coincidence?”  
“Uh, yeah. If Shepard really was abducted, she’d remember it, fucker.” Jack says.  
“Exactly. I was in France, not on a spaceship.” Shepard crosses her arms.  
“You wouldn’t necessarily remember it. They might’ve made you forget after experimenting you, or something. Plus, there’s that money you got. Maybe it’s compensation.”  
“‘That money’ was inheritance. Y’know, from the dead relative. Who wasn’t an alien. Anyway, if aliens were going to abduct somebody from this town to study-”  
“Experiment” Joker interrupts  
“Fine, experiment, whatever. If they were gonna do that, they’d use somebody normal.”  
“That’s true,” Kasumi says. “Shep’s not exactly your typical human person. No offense.”  
“Okay, but what about those new people in town? They arrived the same exact day that you did. And not to mention the disappearances.”  
“Jeff,” Edith says, back from the kitchen with Shepard’s food. “Lee did not disappear. She moved.”  
“And has anybody heard from her since?”  
No one said anything, as Edith placed the food on the table and stepped back.  
“Exactly. And what about Garry? Or Jav? Where did they go?”  
“They got out of this shitty town, and they don’t want to remind themselves of it. That’s all. And as for the newbies, what the hell did they do? Look at you weird?” Jack asks.  
“As I said, they came here the exact same day the lights disappeared. Also, I heard them speaking a language that definitely wasn’t English, and, I don’t really think that a group this diverse exists in real life. Like, how would they meet?”  
“So,” Kasumi says, “your problem with them is that they’re a bunch of non-white immigrants who don’t speak English?”  
“That’s not what I said!”  
“Kinda is, dude.”  
“Listen-” Joker starts  
“No, you listen. You believe in aliens. That’s fine. But you can’t go around accusing other people of being aliens. That’s shitty. You know that’s shitty.” Shepard says.  
Joker looks down.  
“And get the fuck out of my table. I’d like to eat sometime today.”

* * *

 

Shepard sighs as she drives down the road. The sun sets on the horizon, and she doesn’t find it beautiful. She turns onto Ells Row, her street, and considers rolling down the windows again, if only to get some fresh air in the truck. But Ells Row is dustier than town, and she doesn’t want that in her face. So instead, she turns the radio back to the station it was on that morning.  
“And this next one goes out to all you believers out there. Keep looking to the stars.” The host says, and an old Sufjan Stevens song plays. She taps her fingers lightly; she doesn’t believe, but she likes music all the same.  
Just down the road, a group of people stand outside the house that’s been empty for years. As she gets closer, she sees boxes and a U-haul. New neighbors. Next door neighbors, at that. She drives past, into her own house, her own garage, and starts carrying in groceries. She can chat with Joker’s Newbies later.


End file.
